Hastings and Rye select Sarah Owen

Margaret Hodge backs David Lammy in race for London Mayor

Last month Margaret Hodge announced that she was no longer in the running to be Labour’s candidate for Mayor of London. In an interview with the Evening Standard, Hodge indicated that she would be supporting a minority ethnic candidate for Mayor, saying: “I actually think the time is right for us to have a non-white mayor. London is a diverse city but we are poor at representation. But let’s wait and see what the candidates say they can do for London.” […]

Labour’s immigration policies are excellent – we need to champion them on the doorstep

By Joe Jervis

The pistol has been fired and the race has begun. For many Labour activists door knocking and phone banking has become a regular part of evenings and weekends as the fight to return a Labour government on 7 May intensifies. Over the past few weeks two topics of doorstep conversation have leapt out at me. One is the passion felt by people of all ages, particularly the older generation, for the NHS. The second, predictably, is public concern over immigration. […]

Make National Community Service compulsory

By Rob Williams

Last month David Cameron called for all 18- to 21-year-olds who have failed to find a job or a place in training to be forced to undertake community work. Under Tory plans those aged between 18 and 21 who have not had a job for six months will be barred from claiming benefit unless they agree to start an apprenticeship or complete community work. The plan is designed to ensure that the 50,000 young people “most at risk of starting […]

London Mayoral candidate attempts to crowdfund cost of campaign

Labour candidates for Mayor will be trying to fund their campaigns in all manner of ways – but Christian Wolmar (the transport expert who joined the race first and remains the only candidate who isn’t an elected politician) has gone down the crowdfunding route. Wolmar is trying to raise £3,000 for his campaign by next week – and has currently raised nearly half of that sum. Although as with all crowdfunding, he must raise the whole sum or he gets […]

“State sanctioned abuse” has taken place Yarl’s Wood, says Cooper

Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, has asked an urgent question in the Commons about abuse allegations at Yarl’s Wood. Yarl’s Wood is an immigration detention centre that opened in 2001. Ever since then guards (who come from private company Serco, which runs the facilitiy) are have faced serious accusations that there has been ongoing mistreatment of the people detained in the facility. This includes reports of sexual abuse and degrading treatment. On Monday, Channel 4 aired a documentary which had […]